Equus logo design – Hyundai Premium Brand

Toyota has Lexus, Nissan has Infinity and Hyundai invented Equus back in 1999.

In 2009 they released the new version of the car. In the end of 2010 they have started the campaign and I think this year (2011) we’ll hear more and more about it. There are already reviews in YouTube in which the government (of South Korea) is supporting the brand by using the cars for their leaders so you can get the idea.

“Equus” appears to be a popular brand name. It means horse or steed (in Latin). In the Middle East the car is known as “Centennial”, but we’ll discuss the logo only. Actually both of them. They are using two emblems. The 2D and 3D – the “Honda badge” and the “Rolls Mascot”.

The logo is obviously some kind of a flying figure. A modern mascot or something of the sort. It’s nice, but it looks anonymous – there’s no head, no details that are resembling a specific creature, except for the stylized wings. It can be a bird, a flying woman/angel or a horse, though – it’s really far away from any horse symbol I know.

Here comes the weird part. The picture above is actually from the same car shown on the other pictures. So, in the front they have the two versions of the Equus logo design and at the back they have put the traditional Hyundai logo. I guess at some point they’ll stop doing that, because it doesn’t make sense.

The accompanying logotype is serif , of course. The coloring is as expected nothing special – just a trendy gradient.

May be after all the Equus logo needs some time to get into our heads. Time will show if it will be as memorable as the “flying lady” of Rolls Royce.

Margarit Ralev created Logoblink.com in 2007, as a 100% logo design blog.
He started his career as s freelance web designer in 2001. Ralev.com design portfolio was created in 2004. In 2006 he registered “Ralev.com Ltd.”, a company providing all sorts of advertising and graphic design services. Since 2008, the company focused on brand identity design and brand consulting.